Two senior members of Barclays' large-scale markets business have left to join rivals in the US, in moves that highlight the efforts now being made by some of its traders to join banks with stronger commitments to FICC.

One of the traders leaving the bank is Mike Cattano, a managing director in Latin American credit trading, who will join Bank of America Merrill Lynch, according to three people familiar with the matter.

Cattano is a former veteran of Lehman Brothers, which he joined in 1996 and where he held senior roles including head of European high-grade trading in London. At BAML he will work as a managing director in Latin America trading, the people said.

Leonardo Jereissati, meanwhile, has been hired by Nomura as head of FX Latin America trading. Jereissati also previously worked at Lehman Brothers, according to Financial Industry Regulatory Authority records. A spokesman for Nomura confirmed the appointment.

Barclays is in the process of pulling back from some of its trading activities globally, focusing more on advisory and capital markets activities. It is moving away from physical commodities and longer-dated trading products. In May, the bank's chief executive Antony Jenkins revealed plans to cut roughly 7,000 jobs from its global investment banking workforce by 2016.

The two departures within the bank's fixed income, currencies and commodities business show the efforts being made by some traders to join banks that are growing or maintaining headcount within their trading businesses, two of the people said.

One New York-based headhunter said a number of staff within the bank's markets business were seeking to exit ahead of expected job cuts: "Barclays is implementing a whole new bank. It's across global markets," they said.

In another recent departure, Roy Golender, who previously worked on commodity derivatives sales at Barclays in London, joined Goldman Sachs as an executive director in energy sales and origination, according to a person familiar with the matter.

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Both Jenkins and Tom King, the sole head of Barclays investment bank, have pointed to the importance of the group's origination business – which includes traditional advisory and capital markets work – in the future, with the planned revamp and cuts largely expected to affect the bank's fixed income unit.

Jenkins said at the time the cuts were announced that the bank would mainly focus on "standard, liquid macro products, with shorter dated maturities – where we already have scale and market-leading execution capability – such as FX, short-dated G10 Rates, and cleared swaps and derivatives".

One City of London headhunter added: “Barclays is probably not the firm for you if want to be an aggressive, principal-based trader and people who want that are naturally going to target other firms, particularly US banks.”

FICC units within the largest US banks posted better-than-expected results in the second quarter after a late-stage pickup in trading activity in June. Financial News reported this week that the performance offered a glimmer of hope for European rivals when they report earnings in the coming weeks.

But revenues within FICC businesses still fell year-on-year at four of the five major US investment banks. Executives also warned during earnings calls with analysts last week that it was unlikely for the June uptick to continue throughout the end of the year, when seasonal declines in fixed income typically lead to lower revenues from the businesses.